But try this, the ship gets both of her nacelles blown off and for survival they need to land some where. Once they touch down, the remaining ship is going to nose right over. Hard to use that as a base of operations. Yeah?

So, bring them down separate. The lower lands on it's gear, and the saucer lands on it's belly.

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What some folks miss is the fact that the impulse engines keep the ship in a basic "hover," and only allow enough downward force to let the feet steady the ship, not hold up the entire 750,000 MT. Sure, if the impulse reactors and space-time driver coils quit, the belly pancakes into the ground. But we're talking about a system that regularly kicks Voyager at tens or hundreds of gees (with the famous inertial dampeners running), so countering a ~1g planetary field is no sweat at all. But if the impulse power fails, Voyager better set down with its chin resting on a mound.

If you can in deed endlessly hover, why devote any internal space to those four legs?

Technically, if you're hovering (regardless if the legs are touching the ground) you haven't actually "landed."

Another reason to have the ability to separate would be, instead of the saucer needing to get away from the lower section (i.e. possible warp core breach), there could be occasions when you wanted the lower to be able to get away from the saucer.

Contamination, boarding party, irreparable damage.

The lower would give you (the Captain) a place to withdraw your crew too.

First Officer: "The entire crew is in the lower section, but the boarders now control the saucer section, what shall we do Captain?"

Captain: "Eject the warp core!"

First Officer:"Huh?"
Captain:"I mean, lock out the saucer's computers and separate the ship."

I'm thinking about at the academy when a class of cadets have all finished their Kobayashi Maru Tests and then either by design (a protest perhaps?) or coincidence that 90 percent of the graduating classing screamed "RAMMING SPEED!" then aimed their ship at the Kobayshi Maru, and BOOM.

It's a fricking neutronic feul carrier.

If you want to blow up the 60 cloaked ships lurking about it's the best target available, if you don't want your crew to end up as rapefood.

considering how awkward it can be assembling that model (i know, i built it and lit the entire thing so had cables traversing both sections) all i can say is i hope to god revell never get into the star ship building industry or we're all screwed

Even if the two components are assembled separately then joined, doesn't necessarily argue that they can separate at will and function independently. The whole point of the separation bit was to keep the families out of harm's way, but they seemed to have dropped the whole families on starships bit after Wolf 359 and definitely after the Dominion war. Rightly so.

Voyager never had any civilians on it when they launched. If they could separate the whole time, why was it not even mentioned once as an alternative at some point when Janeway was ready to blow up the ship on any number of occasions?

The whole point of the separation bit was to keep the families out of harm's way

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No, that's just a benefical extra. As I understand the original concept the ship can separate to relieve the lower section of the bulk of the saucer. Making the lower section faster and more malnuverable, therefor a better combatant in battle situations.